Tuesday, May 20, 2008

When i grow up?

My 3 yr old daughter is currently obsessed about princesses. The kid doesn't watch tv, has never been exposed to disney princesses, but she picked it up. From daycare. Like a virus. If you can't tell, i'm not exactly enthused. Looking at the disney princesses with their unattainable body shape and ridiculous clothing and with only one minority represented i wonder what sorts of messages my 3 yr old gets from idolizing them. I decided i would not buy princess-themed crap (did you notice those sluts will put their image on anything? Band-aides, crayons, food, socks). But the 3 yr old and her parents are celebrating being diaper-free at night, so we celebrated by buying her some underwear--whatever type she wants. You can guess what she chose. I tried to convince her to get stars or dora or hello kitty. No. *sigh*

Yesterday she asked me, "Mom? Know what i want to be when i grow up?" She used to want to be a nurse practitioner like her mother and her grandmother, so i was prepared for her to tell me this again. Instead, she horrified me by telling me, "I want to be a princess when i grow up!" It was like she told me she wanted to join the army. I tried not to react too much and told her, "If you want to be a princess when you grow up, you have to go to university and get a masters degree and learn french." I continued to inform her that the princesses she so much loves all have doctorates in science and they all are fluent in a 2nd language.

5 comments:

Scooter said...

If she finds a nice Jewish boy into schicksas with a Korean heritage, could she be a Jewish American Princess? Or maybe a Jewish Asian Princess? I bet that's a fetish...hold on...never mind. I don't want to test the work safety filter.

I think Pochahantas gets lumped in with the Disney princesses - so that would make two non-white princesses, her and Jasmine. Oh, and Mulan. And now that I went to Wikipedia to see if I forgot any, Tiana, the "first African American Disney Princess". Does Ariel count as white? I would think as a merperson, she shares less DNA with the average human than any other princess, and she had scales - that's green, not white. Of course, she did want to set the boat to rockin with the prince - and he was definitely wonder bread white. If she's not white, then it's an even split, 4/4. If she's questionable and you throw her out, then it will be 4/4/1 after The Frog movie.

Honestly - this is better for everyone than an obsession with boy bands.

Anonymous said...

LOL - sorry but this is GREAT material should I ever had a girl who says the same thing. I think you're right though - it's quite the virus out there in little girl land and even if you aren't encouraging it at home, it's still infiltrated into our mainstream consciousness.

She says said...

I LOVE your response to your daughter. That's fantastic. And I was also going to say what Scooter did about Mulan and Pocahontas (I have to admit that I forgot about Jasmine). And Snow White might have the "white" build right in there (yea, not accidentally, I'm sure), but she looks like she could also have a bit of Latina in her too. In which case, she would definitely have a second language, along with Mulan, Pocahontas and Jasmine. Heck, those princesses would definitely be able to take down Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty! No question that they've got the skills.

And what about Pixar princesses? Like Fiona? Maybe you could convince her that Fiona (the ogre version) counts too.

Anonymous said...

Your other Brother does not have to worry about Princess having two sons. But then, they may have to deal with a Princess later in life.

Anonymous said...

She knows three languages. US, British and Australian.